No Mistakes, No Coincidences
by fawkes21
Summary: Everything happens for a reason but for what reason is everything still so wrong? COMPLETE
1. A Lot Can Happen in a Year

**A/N – Funny story…..ok, not so much funny as it is tiresome. But this is the THIRD time I've reposted (sorry!) but there were some logistical problems that simply could not be resolved. Much of the first few chapters is the same; I had to rework the concept of time as my backdrop and edit accordingly. If you are still interested in reading this, I promise that now (finally!) I can get this story finished. I loved the idea of "time", but it simply wasn't feasible for this story. Maybe I will use it in a future work, but for now this story will be a nice, simple sequel to "Accidental Odyssey". Please read, review and don't hate me!**

* * *

"A lot can change in a year" 

Those words, spoken form halfway across the country, were what struck a chord somewhere within him. He hadn't really thought about everything that had happened until then. Well, that's not quite true, he told himself. He had thought about things lots of times but his still wounded mind pushed those thoughts as far back as possible. So the thoughts were certainly present but he refused to let himself to dwell on them. Still, defiance in the face of one's problems does not cause them to cease to exist.

_"A lot can change in a year"_

Well sure, lots of things could change in a year. Old ones would die and new would be born. There would be periods of great joy followed by periods of immeasurable sorrow. There would be new hopes and dreams as old ones were crushed or abandoned. There would be echoes of laughter that would be followed by the silent rain of tears. There would be moments of fiery rage followed by intervals of peace and surrender. Nothing ever really stayed the same. That was what his initial response had been to the statement.

He knew that wasn't what she meant.

She meant that people could change in a year. Old attitudes could be replaced by new ones. Personal grudges and vendettas could fall by the wayside to make way for understanding and forgiveness. People could be able to see the error of their ways and could think about how they would handle situations differently if they could only have a second chance. People could make amends for past hurts and transgressions so that life could return to the way it had once been. Old wounds could heal, even if the scars remained. People could forgive, and people could forget.

_"A lot can change in a year"_

Just because things can change, doesn't mean they have, he argued. The way things had been when he left had led him to believe that things would never change. After all, his thoughts and feelings regarding the whole situation hadn't changed a whole lot in the past year. Sure, he often wondered if he had overreacted, and it occurred to him that maybe running away from the problem hadn't been the best way to solve it, but he was so sure that he was right. He pushed the nagging doubts away because he refused to entertain the possibility that he may not be the only one who had been wronged. He was sure that everyone else involved felt the same way that he did. After all, the wounds ran deep. He still harbored resentment towards his friends and their (perceived) betrayal. He was still angry with himself for not handling the whole mess better. He still felt guilty that he had let the accident happen in the first place. And he didn't believe that there was anything left for him back in Vegas.

_"A lot can change in a year"_

Maybe it wasn't such a statement of fact as it was a desperate persuasion on her behalf. If she could just convince him that things had changed, or at least had the possibility of changing, then maybe he would come home. She still believed, even if he didn't, that he still had a home in Vegas. She knew he had his demons to wrestle with, but didn't they all? She knew she certainly did. And as much as it pained her to admit it, she was losing her battle.

_"A lot can change in a year"_

The words weren't only for his benefit she realized. She was as much trying to convince herself as she was trying to convince him. She didn't want to tell him that, in actuality, not a whole lot had changed in a year. Sure, things could have changed in a year, but for both of them, things had stayed the same. And judging by the pleading desperation in her voice, things had gotten a great deal worse for her. But she wouldn't beg him to come back. It wasn't her style. She had too much pride for that. So she did the one thing she knew she was good at: she tried to make a reasoned argument for why it would be in everyone's best interests if he would just come home.

"_A lot can change in a year"_

He wasn't going to buy into her idealistic promises. He was determined to fight her on this. He was about to deliver a counter-argument that would make Perry Mason proud. He would remind her of why he had left in the first place. He would argue that no matter how much things had changed (if indeed they had), they could never truly be okay. He would provide solid examples of everything that had led up to him leaving, and how it would keep him away. He would break down her argument until even she would agree that he was right, and nothing had really changed after all. He was about to launch into his argument when he heard something in her breath that stopped him. Across the phone lines, despite all of her attempts to conceal it, he heard it – the faintest hint of a sob. It caused him to falter and to lose his focus. Suddenly, it wasn't about him anymore. In that instant, it was all about her.

_"A lot can change in a year"_

He hadn't thought about it until then. He hadn't even considered it to be a possibility. Even if nothing else had changed, he was so sure that it would have. But listening to her on the phone, he realized that she hadn't changed in the one way that she so desperately needed to. He wouldn't have thought it possible. He would have expected them to see to it that she changed. But it seemed increasingly evident that she had been fooling everyone, including herself, into believing that she had changed and that she had emerged unscathed.

She had anticipated the question; she had heard it enough in the last year to know when it was coming. The lie that she had readily told so many times was on her lips, but when it came time to respond, she found that she could only tell him the truth. Maybe it was because he didn't sugarcoat the question, or phrase it as a slightly evasive allusion to the issue. He was the only one to ask her, straight up, if she was still drinking. And he was the only one she told, straight up, that yes, she was. She felt oddly relieved the minute that the words left her mouth. Finally, after a year, it wasn't only her secret anymore.

_"A lot can change in a year"_

He had told her that he would always be with her. And in the year that had passed, he had failed to keep that promise. He hadn't been with her in a year when she had so desperately needed someone to be there for her. He should have been that person. As soon as she told him her truth, he knew that he had to go back, whether things had changed or not. He would always go to her. It was better late than never. He wasn't looking forward to seeing the remnants of his old life, but he was looking forward to seeing her.

* * *

He stood in front of her, and it was as if both a second and a lifetime had passed between them. Everything was the same and everything was different.

But her smile was just as he remembered.

"Welcome home Greg. It's been a long time"

"It has been a long time Sara. It's been a year". He paused.

"And a lot can change in a year"


	2. Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

Greg and Sara walked through the airport in relative, though companionable silence. As they passed the airport bar, Sara spoke.

"Want to get a drink? I'm driving after all. It'll be just like old times"

He looked at her, solemn and serious.

"That's not funny Sara".

They continued to walk without another word. It wasn't until they were in the car and on their way that she spoke again.

"I'm glad you came back".

He smiled at her. "Of course I came back. You needed me"

"So it wouldn't have mattered if I'd simply wanted you to come back? Would that not have been enough of a motivating factor for you?" Her eyes never left the road.

"Of course it mattered Sara. But considering the state of affairs when I left, no, it probably wasn't enough of a motivating factor. And how was I supposed to know if you wanted me to come back or not? Until two days ago, I hadn't heard a single word from you. You couldn't have wanted me to come back too badly or you would have called me sooner"

She was silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet and even.

"You're right. I didn't call. Don't put all the blame on me though; that's not fair. You didn't call either. And maybe I was secretly glad that you didn't. Because if you had called, I don't think I could have brought myself to talk to you. I've spent the last year in a self-induced fugue. And in my increasingly rare moments of lucidity and sobriety, I told myself that no matter what, you could never find out. It's funny – I never once felt bad about hiding the problem from anyone else here. I think it's because they were already so disappointed in me. I figured it was okay to lie and hide the problem because I was already a big failure in their eyes anyways. But you… you never once saw me that way. Even after everything that happened, you still respected me. You risked everything for me; how could I betray that kind of friendship? So I couldn't tell you. I couldn't lose the one person who was still in my corner".

Greg was stunned. All this time he thought he was the only one who was feeling hurt and betrayed. And all this time, Sara had been feeling very alone with these very same emotions. Their coping mechanisms manifested itself in the form of an addiction, though the source differed. For her, it was an addiction to alcohol to help anesthetize her thoughts and feelings. For him, the addiction had been self-righteousness and anger so that he could numb the part of his brain that threatened to tell him that he was not the victim he made himself out to be. Both of them turned to something else because they had been too afraid of finding out what they might learn about themselves if they took the time to look.

"Sara?"

"Yes Greg?"

"I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner"

"I'm sorry I didn't call you sooner"

"Why did you call me Sara? I mean, from what you told me before, you had no intention of reaching out to anyone. So why me and why now?"

She thought for a moment.

"Well, like I said before, I always knew you were the one I could trust. If I was going to call anybody, it was going to be you. I actually had no intention of telling you my secret when I called you. I was sitting at home, feeling mighty sorry for myself, when I found myself dialing information and looking you up. It was never a conscious effort. I'm sorry if that sounds bad, but I didn't ever plan to call. But when you picked up, I felt the most wonderful sense of peace and comfort. I still didn't want to tell you, but I knew that no matter what, I wanted you to come back. I don't know, maybe it was a sub-conscious thing. I really don't believe that my phone call to you was something that I rationally thought out beforehand."

"I can't believe that the highly rational Sara Sidle didn't have any idea of what she was doing." His teasing was cautious and gentle. "So if you didn't plan to tell me…if I hadn't asked you, you wouldn't have told me?"

"No, I probably wouldn't have" she answered honestly. "And even when you asked me, I wasn't going to tell you. I would have fed you the lies that I have been sustaining everyone else with. But I couldn't lie to you. I made up my mind, in that tiny fraction of time, that I owed you the truth"

"I'm glad you told me," he said, glancing at her.

She smiled. I'm glad too. I didn't think I would be, but it's sort of nice knowing that I am not alone in this anymore".

They were silent once again. They didn't speak until the lab was in sight. Once again, she was the one to break the silence.

This time she broke it with a bombshell.

"I didn't tell Grissom you were coming back"

"What!"

She visibly cringed at his outburst.

"Don't be mad?" It was a question, not a statement.

"Sara, how can I not be mad! I never anticipated that I would come back, which, might I add, was a challenge in itself, only to be unwittingly sacrificed to the god of wrath!"

She barely concealed a snort. "Don't you think you're over-reacting just a bit?"

"No. No I don't. If anything, I am under-reacting. He is going to freak out when he finds out that you called me. He's going to kill you. Then, he's going to kill me"

"Oh he is not" she replied though she looked less then certain. "Maybe he'll be happy to see you"

"Yeah, and maybe Paris Hilton is really worth all the attention she gets. You've have got to be kidding me! This is the worst thing that could happen!"

She sighed. She parked the car and turned to look at him.

"Okay, so I should have said something. But you know Grissom – he would have started asking me questions that I am not ready to answer yet"

"And when are you planning on telling him the real reason behind your invitation?"

She looked at him tentatively "After he sees you?"

He scowled at her. She saw right through it and knew that she had won this battle.

"Oh, don't look so proud of yourself Sara Sidle. I am only letting you have this small victory because you are going to be in for one heck of a fight when it comes your turn to talk to Grissom"

She chose to ignore this, knowing full well that he was right.

"Ready to go in?"

"No" he said. Did she really need to ask?

"Let's go then," she said as if his answer had been in the affirmative.

He rolled his eyes and dutifully followed her into the lab. This was going to be interesting.

* * *

Greg pretended not to notice the stares and whispers as he and Sara walked through the lab. Great. It wasn't bad enough that he felt like he was marching off to his doom. Now, on top of everything, he felt like some sort of circus oddity that everyone ogled with morbid curiosity. The feeling only heightened as they walked into the break room. Four heads swiveled around to face them. Four different reactions greeted him.

"Oh my God! Greg" Catherine practically shrieked as she leapt from her chair to envelope him in crushing hug, which Greg found himself gratefully reciprocating. He relished in the warm brevity of the moment. Well, if nothing else, Catherine would be happy he was back.

"Greg, man, it's good to see you" Warrick seized his hand and held it for just a second shorter then what would have been deemed friendly. He didn't seem upset, but he seemed thrown off his game. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to react. Greg understood that. He wasn't so sure how he was supposed to react either.

"Greg" Nick's monosyllabic greeting stung, but it was nothing compared to his gaze. The once warm eyes were distant and there was an emotional void there. He was politely aloof as he struggled to contain the million feelings that churned inside of him. Greg supposed that Nick's reaction shouldn't have surprised him; after all, Nick had been his closest friend and Greg had never told him that he was leaving. Greg realized that he was thinking about his friend's feelings for the first time since he'd left. He had taken everything into account except how much it would hurt them when he left without a single word. He might have mused on this further had it not been for Grissom's reaction.

Upon seeing Greg, Grissom stood up. His eyes met Greg's for only a second.

Then he calmly stalked out of the room. His voice echoed from the hallway.

"Greg. My office. NOW"


	3. Two Sides of the Same Coin

_Who in the hell does he think he is?_ Greg thought irritably to himself. _I don't even work here anymore. He can't boss me around like that…can he?_

Greg was going to tell Grissom exactly what he could do with his dictatorial attitude when Sara's eyes stopped him. Her eyes pleaded with Greg to hold his tongue and at least hear Grissom out. He sighed inwardly. She so wanted him to try and make some sort of amends with Grissom that he couldn't just ignore Grissom's demand for Greg to join him in his office.

_Well you came this far_, he reasoned with himself. _The least you can do is humor Sara and talk to the man._

He left the room, though not before making a dramatic eye roll that told everyone exactly what he thought of Grissom's little scene moments earlier. He walked into Grissom's office, mentally bracing himself for the tirade that he was sure would come. Grissom was sitting with his back to Greg, staring intently at some of the many specimens that lined his orderly shelves. Greg wondered if Grissom was composing the riot act that he wanted to read to Greg. Or maybe he was trying to figure out how to have a semi-rational conversation with the younger man without excessive use of expletives. The silence unnerved Greg; it threw him off his game. He had thought that he was prepared to challenge Grissom, no matter what words of anger were flung round the tiny room. But the longer Grissom was quiet, the less sure of himself Greg was. It was of like standing at home plate, with a full count, and waiting for the pitcher to release the ball. The seconds' pass by like an eternity, and the longer he waited, the more nervous he got. He knew what he had to do, but as the seconds crept past, the less certain he was of his ability to do it. Greg prayed that when Grissom finally pitched to him that he wouldn't strike out. This was not the time to sit and wait for his pitch. Greg was determined to swing for the fences, or strike out trying

Maybe he's waiting for me to say something, he mused to himself. I had a whole year to think about what I would say – so why can't I say a word? 

All these thoughts raced through his head as Grissom continued to sit there in silence, with his back turned. Greg was growing more tense and annoyed by the second. He had been summoned here, in no uncertain terms, and now Grissom was just going to sit here and not say a word? What on earth could he possibly be thinking about so intently? He had to have something to say, anything to say. Greg almost would have preferred it if the older man had shouted at him, raised his hand to him, or done something. Anything. Anything that would have made the awkward, uncomfortable and oppressive silence dissipate into the night. The silence stung more wildly then any slap. It was as if Grissom was simply trying to prove a point. He was trying to show Greg how easily he had been erased from their lives. He could continue to ignore Greg as easily in his presence as he had done in his absence. Greg hadn't thought it possible for Grissom to hurt him any worse then he already had, but the proof sat there in front of him, in deafening silence. Greg wasn't sure how much more of this unspoken punishment he could take.

* * *

"Greg. My office. NOW"

_What the hell am I doing? _Grissom asked himself as his harsh command to Greg reached his ears. _He isn't part of this world anymore. He can refuse to come in here – can't he?_

Grissom was going to turn and speak to Greg with a little more civility, but the memory of Sara's eyes stopped him. Her eyes pleaded with him to make Greg stay and try to right the wrongs that had been done. He sighed inwardly. She so wanted him to make amends with Greg that he knew he had to maintain at least some modicum of self-assuredness.

_He's come this far, _he reasoned with himself. _The least you can do is humor Sara and talk to the man._

He continued down the hall without a backward glance so that everyone would know that he meant business. He waited in his office, mentally bracing himself for the angry words that he was sure would come. Grissom stared at the shelves without seeing any of the specimens that sat perched there. Though he heard Greg enter, he didn't turn around, nor did he speak. He was trying to compose the eloquent speech that would wipe the slate clean and erase the hurt feelings. He was trying to figure out how to have a semi-rational conversation without saying something that Greg could misconstrue as negative. The silence didn't register with Grissom; he was almost unaware of it. The silence of the room was paralleled by the cacophony of noise inside his own mind. It was like standing on the pitcher's mound, with a full count, facing the most intimidating of batter's. His mind mentally ran through his repertoire of pitches trying to find just the one that would get him out of this situation with the most minimal damage. He couldn't just let pitch to Greg without thinking through every possible scenario. He knew he couldn't stand it if the ball got knocked out of the park. This was a game that he simply could not afford to lose.

_I called him in here, _he reminded himself. _I had a whole year to think about what I would say – so why can't I say a word?_

All these thoughts raced through Grissom's head as he continued to sit there in silence, with his back turned. He grew more stressed and worried by the second. He had summoned Greg in here and he had yet to speak another word to him. He had to say something, anything. He almost would have preferred if the younger man had cursed at him, thrown a punch at him or done something. Anything. Anything that would have made this loud, ugly and stifling silence disappear into the night. As he became more acutely aware of the silence, the more agonizing it became. The silence in the room troubled him more then any crime scene. It was as if Greg was a case the Grissom simply did not know how to solve. There were no easy answers and Grissom wasn't even sure that he had all the facts and evidence straight. This terrified him. He always found an answer. This time he had only questions. He wanted to prove that the team cared about Greg as much in his absence as they had in his presence. He hadn't thought it possible to hurt anymore now then he had when this entire situation exploded in front of him. But the proof was behind him, only feet away. It may as well have been miles, because Grissom knew that the Greg who had left was a distant memory. And he now had to try and find that once familiar friend in the stranger who sat behind him.

Grissom at last turned to speak.

There was a bitter sense of déjà vu when he saw that Greg had once again left without a word.

* * *

Sara saw Greg leave and hurried to follow him. She caught up with him in the parking lot where she found him lighting up a cigarette.

"Since when do you smoke?" she asked, slightly breathless after giving chase through most of the building.

"Since about a year ago" he replied sharply. "And spare me the lecture on the dangers it poses to my health. I'm in no mood to have the riot act read to me"

She rubbed his arm sympathetically. "Grissom really gave it to you, huh?"

He shook his head and looked at her with wounded eyes. "He just sat there. Never said a word. Turned his back to me and didn't even try to talk to me. I knew he was angry, but I thought he would at least speak to me."

She thought for a moment. "Things will get better," she offered tepidly by way of consolation.

"How can they get better if he is giving me the silent treatment?"

"Maybe he didn't know what to say"

He laughed a bitter, sardonic laugh. "Yeah, right. Gil Grissom, man of a million words couldn't think of something to say? Nice try Sara, but I don't buy it. If this is the way things are going to be, maybe I should just try and catch the next plane out of here."

She grabbed the cigarette from his hand, took a long drag, and exhaled slowly. "Give me a month Greg. That's all I ask. Thirty little days, then you can stay or you can go. But promise me a month"

He took the cigarette back from her. "Fine. Just call it 'my life as an infomercial'. If after thirty days I'm not completely satisfied, I'm returning everything for a full emotional refund".

He ground the cigarette out under his heel and they shook on it.

The month passed in a whirlwind of voices and emotions. Every time Greg tried to sift through the conversations all he could recall were small fragments of what he had said…

First with Catherine –

_Maybe I wasn't thinking completely clearly when I left. Or maybe I was finally seeing things for the way they really were. Prove me wrong Catherine. Tell me that everything was okay in the weeks or months before I left. You can't, can you? Because you saw it too. You saw tension between us. Maybe I just felt it stronger then you guys did. Of course I'm sorry that I didn't say good-bye. No, of course I wish that I hadn't left right when things were so bad. I just didn't feel like I had much choice. I know I should have called. Come on Cath, you know I didn't mean to hurt you. I don't know if I'll stay. Cath, please…please don't cry…_

Then with Warrick –

_I should have talked to you at least. I mean, you were the only one who was on my side from the get-go. Oh come off it Warrick, they were not on my side. Well, maybe I didn't make it easy for people but I was scared, ok? I have never been in that situation before and I panicked. I mean, sure, I _guess_ things look a little different now but I still don't think I overreacted. Yes, I do believe that leaving was the best thing I could have done. Oh come on Warrick, please don't say that. I didn't think it was easy to just throw what I had here away. No, I mean it. It killed me, it really did. Warrick, please…please don't be angry…_

And finally Nick-

I was hurt, man. That's all I can say. I mean, I thought of you as my best friend and I felt so betrayed by you. Well I know the situation was difficult. Yeah, I guess I see the position you were in, but that doesn't… I suppose if it had been reversed I probably would have acted the same way you did. I never meant to hurt you Nick, I really didn't. You're right, I should have told you in person that I was leaving. And I should have called. Nick, that's not fair. I didn't just throw our friendship away like a piece of trash. Of course I don't think that you are that easy to dispose of. I want to make things right. Nick, please…please don't walk away…

The one person's voice that he could never find in the disjointed recollections was Grissom's. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find it. They still had yet to speak. Greg knew that if something didn't give, he would have to leave again. He refused to stay as a silent outcast in Grissom's life. He was sitting in the break room waiting for Sara so that they could go grab some breakfast. It was a strange feeling every time he entered the lab – it had once been his safe haven, his place of refuge. Now he felt like an interloper who kept trying to force his way into a world of which he was not meant to be a part of. He was reading "If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem" and was deeply engrossed in the dense text. He did not hear Grissom enter. When he glanced up he nearly jumped out of his skin to see his former boss standing only two feet away and staring intently at him with a slightly bemused look on his face.

"I didn't know you read Faulkner" was all he said.

_What you don't know about me could fill a warehouse_ Greg thought.

Aloud he said, "What can I say? I am just an enigma wrapped up in a riddle"

"You certainly are" said Grissom. He looked very serious. "I know there are a lot of things that need to be said, but this isn't the time or the place. But if you are still willing to listen, I am ready to talk. What do you say?"

"Well I've waited a year to listen to what you had to say so what's a few more hours?" Greg saw the glimmer of hurt in Grissom's eyes and hastily added, " I mean, of course this isn't the time or place anyway, so even if we wanted to talk we couldn't. So yeah, how about tomorrow when you're done work? I'll meet you here."

Grissom gave a sad half-smile. "I'll see you then.

He turned to go. Greg had just returned to his book when Grissom spoke again.

"Would you consider coming back for good?" The words tumbled from his mouth quickly, before he lost the nerve to ask them.

Greg paused for a long second.

"I used to think I'd stay forever" he said sadly as he walked out the door.


	4. So It Goes

"Here we are". There was a finality in Greg's statement. It was not a declaration of physical geography. Rather, it was a reflection of the state of mind that the two men found themselves in.

"And where is 'here'?" asked Grissom with typical severity in his tone.

Greg was in no mood for philosophizing. "I don't know. You tell me. Where is 'here'?" he asked impatiently.

"It's everywhere and it's nowhere" came Grissom's response.

"How cryptic" offered Greg.

"How apropos" countered Grissom.

They sat in silence for an eternity. A lone car flashed paced the diner's window into the impending night.

"So it goes," said Grissom in his quiet, non-plussed manner.

"Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ­Slaughterhouse Five" Greg answered.

Grissom smiled absently, as if remembering a joke he'd heard in his youth. He was a thousand miles away in a world that had no boundaries. "Very good Greg. I always knew you had more potential then you were willing to exhibit."

"Did it ever occur to you that perhaps you were stifling my growth instead of allowing me to flourish?"

Grissom cocked his head to the left. "Is that how you feel?"

"I'm a scientific person too, lest you forget. I observe only the facts and extrapolate my conclusions accordingly. I don't postulate how things could, or ought to be".

"You seem angry Greg".

"And you seem oblivious Grissom".

Grissom shrugged indifferently. "Perhaps oblivion is the last bastion of sanity".

Greg's face flushed angrily. "That is such a crock Grissom and you know it. You aren't that oblivious; you can't be. You choose not to see things – that's different from oblivion".

Grissom shook his head slightly as Greg's voice continued to rise and echoed lightly off the walls of the diner. "This you should always keep - no one else wants it," he said.

"What?" Greg was confused by the sudden shift in conversation. They had been starting to talk (at least Greg thought they were on the brink of it anyways) and Grissom suddenly swung the conversation in a completely different direction.

Grissom repeated. "This you should always keep - no one else wants it"

Greg rubbed his face tiredly. "Grissom, I don't-"

Grissom made a small, disappointed noise in the back of his throat. "And I thought that perhaps you were finally ready to challenge me in a battle of wits. How wrong I was. You see, it's a riddle Greg. 'This you should always keep - no one else wants it' – the answer should be simple, all things considered. The answer is: your temper. That is what you should keep, because I certainly do not want it."

Greg slammed his fists down with resounding force. "Must you always speak in riddles?"

"Would you rather I speak in rhyme?" Grissom replied, looking almost amused. He seemed to be enjoying this.

"God! Would you please just talk to me? You owe me that much."

"Quote your price". Grissom was grinning like the Cheshire cat now.

Greg closed his eyes. The room felt like it was spinning and he felt as if any control that he had ever had was evading him. This was wrong. This was all so, so wrong.

"How did it get like this?" he whispered.

Grissom straightened in his chair and began to wax Seussian. "How did it get so late so soon/ It's night before it's afternoon/ December is here before it's June/ Goodness how the time has flewn/ How did it get so late so soon?"

It was more than Greg could handle.

"Damn you!" he cried as he leapt to his feet. He grabbed the older man by the shoulders and yanked him to his feet.

"What's the matter Greg?" taunted Grissom. "Don't you have a sense of humor?"

"Not about this!" Greg cried, tightening his grip. "I came here to talk to you, and all you do is mock me! You always do this Grissom! You speak in allusions and analogies and I guy like me is lucky to keep up. We're here _now, _Grissom. We're everywhere and nowhere. We're living in the past, the present and the future, all at the same time. Say something. _Anything. _Say something that I can understand!"

Grissom's eyes displayed no emotion.

"So it goes," he whispered.

"Noooo!" cried Greg. He drew his fist back and threw it at Gil Grissom's face with all of his strength……………….

**SMACK!**

The noise and the pain reverberated in his head. He sat up dazedly and looked around.

The diner had vanished. In its place was a darkened hotel room, and the remains of the bed from which Greg had just fallen out of. With his head aching, he forced himself to focus. It was all a dream. An ugly, awful, all-to-real sort of dream. Greg pulled himself into a more comfortable position and grimaced as the ringing in his head increased. Scowling at the night table that had broken his fall, he dragged himself to his feet and stumbled towards the bathroom. He flipped the light switch, blinking hard against the intrusive fluorescent lighting. He assessed the damage to his head through narrowed eyes. He groaned as he leaned in for closer inspection. There was sizable lump already starting to make its presence known on the right side of his head, just above the eyebrow. It was already turning a fantastic shade of purple, and would no doubt look even more spectacular come the morning.

_Why did I have to go pound for pound with an end table, tonight of all nights? _Greg thought to himself as he shut the light off and stumbled back towards the bed. He was meeting Grissom in less than fifteen hours. He tried to push the remnants of the dream from his mind and get back to sleep.

"So it goes," he murmured unconsciously as he drifted back into a restless sleep.

* * *

**A/N – to make things easy, anything that you recognized in here doesn't belong to me. It belongs to CBS, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Theodore Geisl, etc. Please don't sue.**


	5. Hide and Seek

Greg was tapping his foot frenetically against the leg of the chair as he waited for Grissom to finish work. He saw Sara glance his way once or twice, but didn't pay her much attention look up until she said his name with such force that he almost fell off the chair.

"Greg!"

"Jes – what, Sara?"

"I know you probably have a lot of nervous energy right now, but if you don't stop that tapping then I am going to chain your foot to the floor!"

He glared at her but obliged. She was right. He_ was_ full of nervous energy. On top of that, the pain in his head had moved from dull ache to crushing pain. He had taken some aspirin which had done nothing to alleviate the pain. He figured that his head felt about as good as it looked. He sighed silently to himself. He wanted to tell Sara about the dream, but he couldn't quite bring himself to talk about it. He wondered if it meant something. He wasn't a big believer in pop psychology or dream analysis, but he was certain that there had to be some underlying context to the dream he had had the previous night. Unlike most dreams, this one wasn't fading from his memory. It stood out with stark clarity and was frankly driving him crazy. He may have sat there and tried to analyze his unconscious psyche further but Grissom walked into the room at the moment.

"What's the other guy look like?" he asked, peering over his glasses to get a better look at the bruise on Greg's head.

"Terrible. I really finished him off" he replied with false machismo.

"He threw himself onto a night table in his sleep" said Sara dryly without looking up.

"I didn't throw myself – I fell" Greg retorted indignantly. "And for the record, I haven't fallen out of bed since I was eight years old".

"So what made you fall last night?" inquired Grissom.

"Just a dream I had. I was dreaming that I –" he faltered. "I don't really remember. Ready to go?" he finished lamely.

Grissom silently nodded and walked out of the room. Greg followed. He heard Sara whisper from behind him.

"Good luck".

_I'm going to need it,_ thought Greg as he hurried to keep up.

* * *

A sense of déjà vu swept over Greg as he and Grissom sat in the diner drinking coffee and pretending to eat their food. It was as if they had been in this exact place, this moment in time before. _Of course it feels that way dummy, _Greg thought to himself._ You just had this dream last night_. But it wasn't until he met Grissom's eyes that he realized why this all felt so familiar. It wasn't the dream he had the night before; it was something that had taken place so many months ago…..

"… _Let's face it; we are way beyond apologies here. I can't say anything that will make you feel any differently. And you can't say anything that will change the way I acted. The last three days have been a turning point for us. For all of us. And things won't ever be the same again. They can't be. You and I, and everyone, we are all different people then we were on Friday. I don't know how to get us back to who were then, and I am not ever sure if those people exist anymore. All I know is that what's done is done. There's no going back." _

_Greg looked at Grissom carefully. It was true. There was something different in his eyes now, something that wasn't there before. And Greg knew if he were to look in the mirror that he would find a stranger staring back at him. The realization cut like a knife. He swallowed hard._

_"So if we can't go back, then I guess the next logical question is where do we go from here?"_

_"It depends. I guess the only thing we can do is try and move on from where we are now. We take tiny baby steps forward and try to put our lives back in order."_

_Greg smiled grimly. "I'm not sure if I can do that. My life right now feels like a jigsaw puzzle that has pieces missing. I feel as if I have lost part of myself. I don't know when, or if, I will be able to find those pieces and put everything back again."_

_Grissom was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, there was a startling finality in his voice. "I came here tonight because Sara asked me to. She wants to see you, but not until you and I have made our peace. I came here because I thought we could do that. But there more I thought about it, the more I realized something: everything that has happened between us, it was never about you and what I thought you had done. My only concern was for Sara. And in the process, I treated you with great disrespect and for that I am sorry. I wish things had turned out differently. But they didn't. I don't know how to make peace with you, because I can't make peace with my life. And I suspect you are caught in that same dilemma. I am sorry for what's transpired between us but I don't have an easy 'band-aid' solution…"_

Greg shook himself out of his reverie. He had forgotten about that conversation in the bar, the one they had had just before Greg had left. It felt as if they had just had that conversation. It felt as if they were still having that conversation. Everything could have changed with the conversation. But somehow, one or both of them had missed the opportunity to make things right. Greg was still mulling over this as Grissom began to speak.

"Greg-"

"Don't," he said tightly. Grissom stared back at him, slightly taken aback.

Greg forced himself to meet Grissom's eyes. "Just don't. Don't tell me what you think you need to say to me. We've already done that Grissom. We've already been here, already said those things."

Grissom nodded slowly. "The night in the bar" he said, almost to himself.

Greg nodded sadly. "I thought I'd forgotten about it," he admitted, swirling the last dregs of his coffee around in the cup.

Both men were silent for a moment. It was Grissom who spoke first.

"Has anything changed?"

"Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know" Greg said. "I thought everything would change. I thought leaving would make everything better."

"And?"

"Everything is exactly the way I left it. Yet somehow, its not. Does that make any sense to you?"

Grissom's lip twitched slightly, almost imperceptibly. "It makes sense insofar as that though time has moved forward, we have stood still. It's as if the world around us has gone on living and changing, and we have just been standing still."

Greg nodded. "That's what I thought. So how do we get things moving again?"

"I don't know Grissom answered honestly. "I think that first, you need to really want things to be moving again."

Greg stared. "Are you saying that I don't want things to change, to be better? Why else would I be here?"

"Sara" Grissom said simply.

The silence once again ensconced them. Grissom was right of course, they both knew it.

"She asked you to come back, didn't she?" inquired Grissom a lifetime later.

"Yes" Greg admitted, not liking the direction the conversation seemed to be headed in.

"Why?" Grissom's tone was edging on harsh.

Greg fidgeted absently with his napkin and looked everywhere but at Grissom. "You'd really have to ask her that" he said finally.

"Greg, if there is something going on with her, then I need to know about it. You can't hide something like that from me."

"Grissom, you can't even see what's right in front of you. No one is hiding anything."

Grissom narrowed his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Greg leaned in, his elbows on the table. "Look, I can't tell you outright why Sara called me. But I will say this: I was able to figure out what was really going on with her from halfway across the country. You haven't been able to see the truth, even though it is staring you in the face every day. Think about it Grissom: what's the one thing that she could never bring yourself to tell you? What's the one thing in her life that has kept her standing still this last year?"

Grissom furrowed his brow in concentration. It slowly began to dawn on him. He thought about every time she had avoided his gaze. He thought about every time she laughed too hard at a joke that hadn't been funny. He thought about every time she acted like a stranger in their midst. Suddenly, the realization of what Greg meant hit him. It physically hurt him to think about. Surely Greg didn't mean what Grissom thought he meant.

"Greg, she's not..."

"What?" Greg challenged. "Say it Grissom. What's she been hiding all this time?"

"Her drinking?" it was little more then a whisper.

Greg didn't answer. His silence spoke for him.

"Oh God" whispered Grissom, looking like he might pass out. "Why didn't she tell me?"

Greg felt a wave of pity. Grissom looked so miserable at the moment. He had to say something to help Grissom understand, even though Greg wasn't so sure that he understood it himself.

"You remember playing hide-and-go-seek as a kid?" Greg asked. Grissom gave him the _just where exactly is this going_ look. Greg hurried on. "Okay, so you never did. But if you had, you'd remember that there was always that one kid who hid too well. He always hid so well that you would eventually give up on looking for him. Sara is that kid. She hid too well. And eventually, you just give up on trying to find her."

"You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found," mused Grissom, waving away the waitress as she came to refill his coffee.

Greg nodded as he gratefully accepted the refill. The coffee was terrible and it burned his mouth, but it provided a nice distraction from the heavy turn the conversation had taken. He was starting to understand that his future in Vegas was not the issue right now. There was something more pressing, more urgent that they needed to address. Sara's secret was out, and it would need to be dealt with before any more headway could be made. Greg felt a knot of worry form in his stomach. He had promised Sara that he wouldn't say anything to Grissom. And here they were, with the secret and remnants of dinner on the table in front of them. Greg reasoned that he hadn't actually _told_ Grissom about Sara's drinking; Grissom had guessed all on his own, with maybe a hint or two. Of course, Greg also realized that Sara probably wasn't going to see it that way. But he would jump off that bridge when he got to it.

"I did play hide-and-seek as a kid," Grissom said suddenly. Greg looked at him, startled.

"Really?"

Grissom gave the closest thing to a real smile Greg had seen since he'd got there. "Yeah. I could never settle on a hiding place. I would move around from place to place, so sure that the next spot would be the perfect one. Someone always found me in the end."

Greg grinned. He caught just a hint of the underlying message. Grissom was giving just a little but of himself away. Grissom glanced at his watch then, and stood up.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

Grissom shrugged himself into his jacket. "Time to play some hide-and-seek. Grown-up style."


	6. Worse Things I Could Do

_In fact I'll bet you never knew _

_But to cry in front of you_

_That's the worst thing I could do_

* * *

Grissom drove to Sara's house without thinking about where it was that he was going. He wasn't even aware that he knew the way until he found himself knocking on her door. He didn't know what he was going to say, or how he was going to say it. It was sort of funny, really. Lately there had been so much to say; yet he had barely spoken a word. He found himself at a constant loss of what to say. First with Greg, now with Sara. The news that she had been drinking again had shocked him. In retrospect, it shouldn't have come as such a surprise. She had left so many clues for him that she might as well have been screaming the news from the rooftops. It was ironic – he had had his hearing restored only to be deaf to so many cries for help. And what was worse, now that he heard them, he was at a complete loss for how to handle them. He didn't know how to make Greg stay and he didn't know how to save Sara. For a man who thought of himself as calm and controlled, he felt like he was trapped on a sinking ship with no chance of rescue. 

"Grissom" Sara sounded surprised as she opened the door. "What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk," he said seriously.

"What about?" she asked. He noticed that she didn't allow the door to open more than a crack. _She doesn't want me to come in_, he thought. It was so tempting to heed her unspoken warning and run away from the problem, but he knew that he couldn't ignore it any longer.

"I'd rather not discuss it at your front door. May I come in?" he asked. She knew it wasn't really a question.

She fought the urge to slam the door, lock it and hide inside her sanctuary. She took a deep breath, and the reasoned, adult side of her opened the door and ushered Grissom in.

He walked in and couldn't help but sweep his eyes across the living space as if he were assessing a scene. He zoned in on the monochromatic paintings on the walls, the starkness of her furniture and the many, many scientific journals that lined her shelves. He also noted the distinct absence of any personal photos and anything that would have made the house feel like a home. There was a highly impersonal feel to the living room, as if she was only occupying space instead of really living there. _How many nights has she sat here alone, finding solace in the arms of Jose Cuervo, Jack Daniels and Jim Beam? _he wondered sadly as he sat on the sofa. He felt like an interloper into her personal hell. Maybe it was just what she needed.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" she asked. He visibly flinched at the question.

"Sit down Sara"

"We're not at work; you can't tell me what to do" she tried to keep the tone teasing, but failed miserably. He gazed at her with tired eyes.

She sat.

"I met with Greg today –"

"What did he tell you?" she interrupted curtly, not caring that it was rude. _I'll kill him if he told_ she thought to herself.

"What do you think he told me?" asked Grissom quietly.

"Something that he promised me he wouldn't. So let's hear it: why are you really here?"

"Why don't you tell me yourself?"

"Why do you always have to answer a question with a question?" she shot back in frustration. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, a look of anger flashing across her face.

Grissom let out a long breath. "I answer your question with a question because I want to hear the truth from you. Haven't you been hiding it long enough?"

She laughed bitterly. "Like you've even noticed how long it's been"

"It's been a year," he said gravely.

Sara stood then. She paced the room like a caged animal in a storm. She knew, as well as he did that the rain of accusations was imminent and she would have done anything to get away. She could sense his disappointment, his anger and his hurt. She was on the verge of breaking down, but knew that she couldn't. Losing control in front of Grissom was the one thing that she could never allow to happen. She had experienced the closest thing to that the previous year, when her moment of weakness caused her to wrap the car around the tree. She knew that he had seen it as a loss of control, but he had been so concerned about her well being that she hadn't even had to disguise it. But she refused to let herself fall apart in his presence. He had always held her in such high regard. She was his Sara, the one who was supposed to be so strong, so perfect. He was so stoic himself that she was afraid to let him see her crumble. She could do a lot of things, but to cry in front of him was not one of them. She took a deep, albeit ragged breath and forced herself to look him in the eye.

"You're right. It _has_ been a year. It has been the longest, loneliest, most damnable year of my life. I would even venture to say it's the worst year of my life. I mean, I can't remember all of it of course, but from what I gather, this year has been horrible. Let's see: first I nearly killed myself and Greg because I was stupid enough to get behind the wheel of the car while drunk. Then I inadvertently ran what might be my only real friend out of town by sending someone to go talk to him, to patch things up. And those were some of the high points of the year! After that it seems to be a blur of people avoiding eye contact with me, as if I have some communicable disease. I vaguely recall my coworkers, who, incidentally are supposed to be my friends, avoiding having any sort of real conversation with me. Which is too bad because maybe someone would have clued in that things aren't going as well as I made them out to be. My boss, well, let's face it Grissom, you couldn't have been more evasive if you tried. You barely even talked to me, as if you were afraid that I might say something that would disappoint you again. I guess it's easier to sweep things under the rug, huh? Just brush it aside, pretend it never happened? Guess what? It did happen, its still happening! You want me to say it? Fine – I have been drinking since the day Greg left. I have drunk, alone, every day. At first it was one drink, just to take the edge off. But it seem that edge was a little sharper than I thought, and soon one drink became two, and well, you can draw your own conclusions. So, yeah, it's been a year Grissom. Boy, has it been one hell of a year!"

Her face was flushed and she was out of breath from raising her voice and talking so fast. She glanced down at her hands. They were shaking. She could feel the tears burning behind her eyes and fought to push them away. Much like she couldn't control her drinking, she found she couldn't control the tears. One slipped down her cheek, followed by another. Grissom stood and reached out to her. It was more than she could bear. She jerked away from his hand and rushed towards the kitchen. He followed her. This time, he wouldn't turn away.

She had pulled the whiskey bottle out from its hiding place beneath the sink and was wrestling to open it. If she could have one drink, just one before he tried to take the bottle away, she would be okay. She could handle anything he had to say – if she only had that one drink.

"Sara-" he reached for the bottle.

"Leave me alone!" she cried shrilly, turning away from him, finally wrenching the lid free.

"I won't watch you self-destruct!" he said, his own voice climbing as he tried to reach past her flailing arms to grab the bottle.

"You've been watching for a year!" she shouted, swinging blindly at him. She was putting the bottle to her lips when he managed to knock it away. Some of the whiskey splashed on her shirt. She pushed him backward blindly and hurled the bottle at him.

"Damn you!" she screamed as the bottle missed his head and shattered to pieces on the wall behind him. He gaped at her, as the sea of broken glass and whiskey spread across the floor. Staring at the surreal scene in front of her, she sank to her knees, her strength gone. Tears spilled down her face as she sobbed.

"Damn you! Damn all of you!" it was little more than a heartbroken whisper now as she rocked hysterically on the spot.

He put his arms around her and pulled her close. She resisted at first.

"I wasn't there before. Let me be here now" he whispered into her ear.

She finally surrendered. For the first time in a year, she let the walls come down. He had seen the real her, and he hadn't left. For the first time in a year, she felt like there might be some chance of emerging from the nightmare. For the first time in a year, she didn't have to hide anymore.

For the first time, she cried in front of him.

And it was the best thing she could do.

* * *

**A/N – The lyrics are from "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" from the soundtrack for the movie Grease!**


	7. Faster Than The Speed of Life

Sometimes, life races past us so fast that we forget what we were doing ten minutes ago, let ago ten days ago. Sometimes life moves so fast that we forget to be angry, forget to cry, forget our problems. Sometimes we are so wrapped up in the moment-to-moment existence that everything else seems so petty and small by comparison. The things that we once thought were the imposing issues in our lives are suddenly rendered irrelevant. It may take on single event for our lives to be turned so suddenly. It may be a death in the family or it may be the birth of the first grandchild. It may be an unexpected illness or it may be an unexpected remission. Whatever the reason, it serves to remind us that the things that we think are so huge and burdensome are, in the bigger scheme of things, merely inconveniences. Robert Fulghum once said: "A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. Learn to know the difference. Ask yourself: is this a problem, or an inconvenience?". Sometimes, when we are least expecting it, we see the bigger picture. We catch a glimpse of what really matters, and it changes the way we look at things. It can join us together, fighting for a common goal. The problems in life far outweigh the inconveniences.

* * *

It had been nearly a month since Grissom had driven Sara to an alcohol treatment center. She had gone willingly, though not without some more tears. Grissom had held her hand the entire drive there. He held her hand as they filled in the necessary forms. He held her hand until the nurse led her away to start the treatment that she so desperately needed. She had sensed in him the guilt that he carried over this, but also the unwavering support that he had for her. She had expected to see disappointment in his eyes, but that was the one emotion that had never come up. He never blamed her, never judged her. He had handled the entire situation poorly up until this point. He knew that he should have done things differently, but he refused to dwell on his own self-pity. The only thing that mattered was getting Sara better. He had apologized to her more than once in the last month, and she never hesitated to accept his apologies. As she checked herself into rehab, it all seemed incidental. In that moment, it didn't matter who had failed who. It didn't matter that Greg had betrayed her secret. All that mattered was that she was going to deal with the problem, head-on, for the first time. She had been terrified of checking in, but knew that it was the only way that things could get better. It is fine to be afraid of things in life, but it is not fine to be so afraid that one forgets to live. Sara knew that it was time for her to start living again.

As the days wore on, the team began to heal. It was strange that it would take the problem of one person's life to make them all realize that what they were calling "problems" were little more than inconveniences. Up until that moment, everything in their lives seemed so all encompassing. The totality of what was going wrong in their lives seemed so much greater than the sum of what was going right.

Greg had been harboring a bitterness about events that had happened a lifetime ago. He was hating the only people in his life whom he had ever felt remotely connected to, and he wasn't sure why anymore. In light of Sara's problems, it all seemed so ridiculous. Why hadn't he picked up the phone and tried to reach out to them? Why had he chosen isolation instead of integration? In retrospect, he understood that their reaction to the accident was no less then how he himself would have reacted. Had the tables been turned, he too would have jumped too quickly into believing an admission of guilt. Sure it had hurt him at the time, but was it really so completely inconceivable to him that their emotions would have manifested themselves in that manner? At the time, he could not see past his own hurt feelings to try and make sense of what everyone else must have been feeling. He had been deeply selfish in the way he handled the entire situation. He had decided that things weren't going his way, and he had picked up and left. It was all childish really. He had not handled everything with the grace of an adult; he had acted with the impunity of youth. Had he stuck around, he could have allowed time to pave the way to solving the problems. In the days and weeks following the accident, it would have been feasible to sit down with the team and have civilized, rational discussion about what was going on. Short of that, he could have at least talked to Grissom, Nick and Sara one on one, instead of hiding his fear behind a mask of misguided arrogance. It was an arrogance that he, and he alone, was the only one who ever had feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Now, in the face of Sara's very real problem, everything he thought he had known made no sense to him. The certainty of his actions had given way to uncertainty about her future.

Grissom had been harboring feelings of failure and resentment. He saw the events of a year ago as his fault, and his alone. Somehow he believed that he had let everybody down, and as a result sent the lab spinning out of control. In his mind's eye, he was the reason that Greg and Sara had gone out drinking that night. Surely they wouldn't have acted that way if he had made life around the lab less stressful for them. And they never would have gotten into a car after drinking as they had done. He must have failed them by not giving them enough guidance and support. As for all of the hurt feelings and animosity, well that had to be his fault as well. He was the leader, the keeper of the keys. It was his responsibility to ensure a complete and total trust amongst the members of his team. He needed to keep the lines of communication open so that they could run like a finely oiled machine. In his haste to make the workplace as efficient as possible he had forgotten that work life inevitably spills over into real life. He failed to make sure that everyone's personal life was in place and secure. He couldn't meddle in their lives, but he should have seen that there was something amiss. He should have realized that vicious barbs and very real arguments were replacing the once friendly banter. Yet no, as he thought about Sara, he realized that those feelings of failure and resentment were misplaced. He had made mistakes but he was in no way the sole contributor to all of the problems that the team had suffered in the last year. He hadn't failed them back then. If anything, he was failing them now by assuming the role of the passive victim. He was so busy feeling sorry for himself that he was completely unable to take any sort of steps towards resolving the problem. In driving her towards rehab, he realized that he was also driving himself towards the sort of rehabilitation that he was in desperate need of. He was not only going to fix himself, he was going to fix the problems that had been plaguing the team for so many months.

Nick had been harboring feelings of animosity and betrayal. He had been hurt when Greg left and as the months passed, that hurt grew into anger. He was angry that his friend had been unwilling to put up a fight and stay in Vegas to work out the problems that he was having. He was angry that Greg had turned away from him so sharply. Nick had thought that he was angry with Greg but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he was angry with himself. He should have been a better friend to the young man that he thought of as a brother. He had not forced Greg to leave but he felt like he had driven him away. If he had been a little more understanding, or a little more receptive, then maybe Greg wouldn't have felt the need to run. He had been so quick to judge Greg that he shouldn't have been surprised that Greg decided to leave. After Greg left, Nick came to realize that he was not the supportive, non-judgmental person that he had thought he was. He had acted in a way that was completely unbecoming of a friend. So instead of trying to reach out to his friend, he had sat back and let his hurt feelings consume him. He was supposed to be the compassionate one on the team, but he felt like he had failed miserably in that department. He spent so many hours and days being angry with Greg, and later being angry with himself that he didn't even realize that Sara had a problem. It wasn't until Grissom told him that he was aware that anything was amiss. In the days following the news, he found his perspective changing. Life was too short to spend on hurt feelings and blame. He had almost lost Greg and Sara once, and he was on the brink of losing them both again. He decided to count his blessings and make every step he could to repairing the fragile relationships that hung in the balance. He was lucky enough to get a second chance. He knew that no matter what the outcome, he had to say the things that needed to be said, because he might not get another chance to say them. The events of the last year, as well as the last few days taught him something. There may not always be another day to make things right with the people in your life.

The healing process still had yet to complete itself. Sara would have to decide if she would face the challenge of remaining sober. Greg would have to face the challenges of remaining in Vegas in spite of everything that had transpired. Grissom would have to face the challenges of remaining the fearless leader of this team. Nick and the rest would have to face the challenges of remaining supportive even through the toughest of times. There is no end to the story; it is cyclical and on going. Not one of them knew what the future might hold. They only knew that there had been a moment of clarity in the midst of a storm. They knew where they had been, but not where they were going to go. It was terrifying and agonizing but it had to be done. They could only move forward now. They had learned that living in the past was no longer an option. There was only now, and the many "now's" to follow. Where problems once stood, now only inconveniences remained. Perspective had shifted and for the first time, everyone was able to see things clearly. As the world continued to spin out of control around them, there at last seemed to be a sense of stability in their lives. Sometimes we can't control anything more than our own emotions. Sometimes life moves too fast for us to keep up. We can only hang on for dear life and pray that everything will be okay in the end. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. We can do little more than congratulate ourselves when things go our way and console ourselves when things don't. We may think we are not ready for all of the obstacles and challenges in our path, but maybe we are more prepared than we are ever willing to give ourselves credit for. We can choose to bury our heads in the sand, or hang on as we move faster than the speed of life.

* * *

A/N – this is not how I pictured the story ending. This chapter became sort of a personal credo for me though. I am in a really scary time in my life, as I get ready to make that great, terrifying leap into adulthood. Everything in my world is changing so fast that sometimes I become overwhelmed. This chapter became my catharsis. Much of what I wrote is my way of dealing with the fear of what lies ahead of me. It may not be the ending the story deserves, but it stands as a reminder to me that sometimes things end up completely differently than we initially anticipated. And that's ok. 


End file.
